Remote server management devices allow various aspects of the operation of a server computer to be viewed and controlled from a management application executing on a remotely located computer system. For instance, certain types of remote management devices allow the video output of a managed server computer to be viewed at a remote location. Moreover, these devices typically allow aspects of the operation of the managed server computer to be controlled from the remote location. For instance, a remote management device may be utilized to remotely troubleshoot the operation of a managed server computer and to restart a failed server computer.
Some server management devices provide functionality for detecting the operational health of an operating system executing on the managed server computer. For instance, some server management devices are capable of determining whether the operating system executing on the managed server computer has crashed. Typically, this is accomplished by continually decrementing a hardware watchdog timer register in the server management device, and executing a watchdog timer driver on the host operating system that periodically resets the hardware register. If the hardware register is not reset, this means that the operating system has crashed and, as a result, the server management device performs a reset of the managed server computer.
Although the use of a watchdog timer register and watchdog timer driver does allow a server management device to detect the health of a host operating system, this solution requires the creation and installation of a custom driver for each operating system with which the server management device is utilized. Moreover, when utilized in conjunction with a virtualized server environment where multiple guest operating systems are executed, these types of watchdog timer-based solutions are not capable of detecting the health of each of the guest operating systems independently of the health of the host operating system.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the various embodiments described below have been made.